His education minister has described politicians on the left as apologists for Islamists. His interior minister has linked “political Islam” to terrorism and has even disparaged Muslim-oriented food aisles in supermarkets. And Muslim leaders have condemned Mr. Macron for what they describe as a kind of collective punishment of France’s Muslims. The most recent killings in particular — first outside a public school and then at a church — have struck at two central pillars of French identity. “If we are attacked once more it is because of the values that are ours,” Mr. Macron said, including freedom of worship and freedom of expression.

Source: New York Times October 29, 2020 09:39 UTC